Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (1676)	6/6/2001 9:51:01 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 23908

Terror alert continues; IDF presents separation plan By Arieh O'Sullivan JERUSALEM (June 7) - There are strong warnings of a serious terrorist attack in the coming days, Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelesoff said yesterday. She also told Israel Radio that an attack was foiled when wanted terrorist Ashraf Bardawil was seriously injured when his car exploded near Tulkarm on Tuesday. Israel has denied involvement in what security officials have called a "work accident." Meanwhile, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told a memorial service for the fallen of the 1982 Lebanon War that "we are in the midst of difficult security reality, perhaps one of the most difficult we have known. "The people of Israel need steadfastness, patience, and resilience. There are no magic solutions to this armed conflict we are facing. The deterrent might and power of the IDF and the knowledge of our neighbors that they won't be able to change the reality in the region through terror and violence is what will bring them to the negotiating table," Ben-Eliezer said. The defense establishment's plan for protecting the seam line, presented yesterday to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, needs to go through many stages and is open to numerous changes before it is approved. Ben-Eliezer presented the plan in a meeting that included representatives from the police and Internal Security Ministry. It calls for sharing the burden of patrolling the seam line with the police. It joins numerous similar proposals, none of which has ever been fully implemented. The previous plan, launched at the end of last year by previous deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh, never moved forward. That plan called for a NIS 100 million investment involving a 74-kilometer fence stretching from Wadi Ara to the Latrun area. Defense officials said it was partially erected, but became frozen with the change of government. The new plan calls for a buffer zone to be carved out on the eastern side of the 1967 border in Samaria and the establishment of a special military body whose sole purpose will be to patrol it. The size of this body has not been determined and suggestions have ranged from a brigade to a full division. The plan also envisions a sophisticated surveillance network to give full time monitoring. This would likely be based on the system set up along the Lebanese border. The idea is for the army to be responsible for the area east of the seam line and the police for that on the western side. The plan calls for some obstacles and fences, but does not envision a continuous fence surrounding the entire West Bank. The cost is being estimated at over NIS 1 billion, defense sources said. "The intention is to put together a serious plan, the problem is funding," said a defense source. The Internal Security Ministry is also drawing up a plan, as is the National Security Council. Defense sources have said that the focus of the plan will be on Samaria, which faces the heart of the populous Sharon plain. Military sources said the Judean border in the southern West Bank is less of a threat and much less populated, so it would receive secondary preference. jpost.com

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (1676)	6/6/2001 9:56:54 PM
From: Zeev Hed	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Come on, the Palestinians expelled into Jordan? This is ridiculous. A war between Syria Iraq and Israel? What would the strategic goals of such a war be? Let me tell you a little secret about Sadam, he'll fight for the Palestinians till the last drop of blood of the Palestinians, but not a single drop of Iraqi blood. If you presume that Iraq and Syria's strategic goal will be the expulsion of the Jewish population into the sea, you got to ask yourself, if that was to be even close to happen, what doomsday response would the Israeli take? So the expulsion of Israel into the sea is not longer a valid Iraqi/Syrian strategic goal. What strategic goal would Israel have in fighting with Syria and Iraq?, Take Damascus and Baghdad? And once they get it, they'll be like a dog running after a car, once it caught up with it, what will the dog do with the car? The same here, what will the Israeli do with Baghdad and Damascus? In 1973, the road to Cairo was clear and open without a single Egyptian army in the way (Sharon took out the third Army in a brilliant crossing of the canal), yet, the orders to move were refused or not even considered and for good reasons, there was no strategic goal achievable by taking Egypt's capital, just because it could be done, does not mean it was strategically wise to do. The same with your hypothetical scenario of a war between Syria and Iraq on one side and Israel on the other. There are no strategic goals achievable by either side from such a conflict. That conflict will not happen, IMHO. The problem is between Israel and the Palestinians. The Palestinians, according to Husseini's Doctrine, have a long range strategic goal of reverting back to the pre 1948 situation, the short term tactical move is to try and come to a short term arrangement that will allow them, mostly by demographic development (and if possible through the "Right of return") longer term to achieve their long term strategy. Until this Doctrine is abandoned, Israel is not going to, nor should it be expected to, commit suicide, thus the "straightening" of borders by various methods and trying to reach a short term arrangement that will not allow the Palestinians the means to achieve the Husseini Doctrine. The hope is that in the next fifty years of peaceful neighborhood between the Palestinians and Israelis, the Palestinians will become the envy of the Arab world, since their standard of living will come close to that of the Israeli, and maybe even close to that of the Israeli Arabs (which as a population have the highest standard of leaving of all Arabs in the crescent). One thing is a historical fact, middle classes rarely go on barricades. They are not "masses with nothing to lose but their chains", and if in fifty years we indeed have a massive Palestinian middle class, they will have more to lose from a conflict than from cooperation with Israel. Expelling the Palestinians from the west bank is not contemplated by anyone except possibly some very fanatic right wing clans, no different than Islamic fundamentalists. Zeev